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Topic: Nosema? (Read 1975 times)

SOmething just struck me today about the behavior of the bees in my #2 hive which has been the subject of several posts here detailing it's apparent loss of it's queen and subsequent appearance of supercedure cells. The visible bees in front of the hive have been exhibiting more nervousness and indecisiveness than the other hive. While normal foraging is taking place many more bees than normal seem to be lingering outside the openning, many seeming to rub their faces. Their abdomens pulsate oddly and some have an odd posture to their wings appearing to be slightly open and fixed in that position. Also, I occasionally see bees wandering in a disorientd fashion on the ground. No bees in my other hive exhibit any of this.

Could the cool weather have triggered an out break of nosema? This is a package that is just over 3 weeks old. Can superceudre be triggered by nosema?

The new queen seems fine so far in her cage...the bees appear to be feeding her but possibly the distinction between that and the desire to kill her is minute?

>Could the cool weather have triggered an out break of nosema? This is a package that is just over 3 weeks old. Can superceudre be triggered by nosema?

Nosema can certainly trigger supercedure. But supercedure is most often caused, these days, by quieens reared in contaminated hives. Cumaphos and Fluvalinate (Check mite and Apistan) are causing the drones to be sterile and the queens to be short lived.

>The new queen seems fine so far in her cage...the bees appear to be feeding her but possibly the distinction between that and the desire to kill her is minute?

>Nosema can certainly trigger supercedure. But supercedure is most often caused, these days, by quieens reared in contaminated hives. Cumaphos and Fluvalinate (Check mite and Apistan) are causing the drones to be sterile and the queens to be short lived.

2 good reasons for concentrating on natural cures over scientific ones. Man has done more damage to this planet in the name of science than from any other single source.

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I've gotten to know 2 of the MD state inspectors now (one raises and sells queens) and both seem to be leaning, in their advice, towards me medicating in this situation. I am simply not sure it's necessary even if I were inclined to used Fumigillin or an alternative. It's getting up near 90 every day now (the usual Wash DC swelter) and I had hoped this, in addition the an overall improvement in the hives condition would help....is this a reasonable assumption? They've looked great for about a week now but this morning I observed some of the behavior that intitially concerned me again - fairly large numbers of bees milling outside the openning, many appearing irritable, indecisive, rubbing their faces, trembing, etc. I'm not remotely concerned with getting honey from this hive this year, only with promoting the health and longevity of the bees.

>I've gotten to know 2 of the MD state inspectors now (one raises and sells queens) and both seem to be leaning, in their advice, towards me medicating in this situation. I am simply not sure it's necessary even if I were inclined to used Fumigillin or an alternative. It's getting up near 90 every day now (the usual Wash DC swelter) and I had hoped this, in addition the an overall improvement in the hives condition would help....is this a reasonable assumption?

I've never treated for Nosema in 32 years of beekeeping. I've never medicated for tracheal mites. I haven't medicated for AFB since 1976. I haven't medicated for Varroa except for '99, '00, and '01. Medication is not only not my first line of reasoning, but I pretty much don't do it. The inspectors tend to think only in those terms.

State Bee Inspectors tend to think short term solutions. Treat to avoid an outbreak. However, as you may of noticed one of the re-occuring themes within these forums is that medicating causes it own problems and those problems are becoming more and more pronounced. I'm with MB, if you can't treat it naturally do nothing. Let's learn a lesson from Darwin and promote suvival of the fitest. If we keep medicating the parasites and diseases will become evermore resistant to the medications and the bees will become evermore susceptable to the parasite or the disease. Stop medicating and use natural methods of parasite and disease control.

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Life is a school. What have you learned? :brian: The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!